No one could accuse me of being Pollyanna, at least not after reading my most recent letters. But on Tuesday, as I was smoking a cigarette on a night walk through St. James’s Park near Buckingham Palace, cheeks rosy in the afterglow of a martini at Duke’s Bar, George Harrison’s lilting lyrics washed over me:
Day turned black, sky ripped apart
Rained for a year ‘til it dampened my heart
Cracks and leaks
The floorboards caught rot
About to go down I had almost forgotAll I got to do is to, to love you
All I got to be is be happy
All it’s got to take is some warmth to
Make it blow away, blow away, blow away
And they set everything right. 1
This quickly became the theme song to my jaunt to London this week, which I needed like a soccer goal needs a net. Indulge me on a sports tangent for just a few paragraphs (I promise).
I arranged this trip as a Christmas gift to my brother, the perpetrator of my affliction, who brought home a copy of FIFA 99 for the family computer2 on our goat farm in Missouri. As lovers of Dennis Bergkamp’s performance in the 1994 World Cup in the States, we immediately gravitated toward Arsenal. (Well, that and the gun reference, which we were very into at the time.)
Tragically for us, the Premier League wasn’t widely available in the Midwest so we missed the undefeated Invincibles of 2003/04 and the Thierry Henry glory years entirely. As soon as broadcast coverage improved, we followed religiously.
By that time, longtime manager Arsène Wenger had pulled off a move from the legendary Highbury to the new Emirates Stadium. And that was the last chapter of his legacy; the team has struggled mightily in recent years. (But this year’s the year they’re going to win it all, right…right? Check with me after Sunday.)
For our pilgrimage to this modern temple of football, we tried to select a game that would yield a good result in this crucial phase of the league. We didn’t realize how how crucial it would turn out to be: Arsenal lost to Bournemouth (1-2) at the business end of the season, threatening to bottle it all and finish in second place again.
Though not at all how I had hoped, this will indeed will become a can(n)onical moment in my fandom, because it gave me a taste of what it’s like to be sad at the Emirates. My brother flew back Monday, but I rashly decided to extend my trip and see them once more in the Champion’s League on Wednesday night in the hope that I might also get to see what being happy there is like.3
And this brings me back around to George Harrison’s sunny view: I can genuinely say that the only things that would have made the trip better were different numbers on the score sheet. Our time together — from feasting at the Tamil Crown to messing around in boats on Regent’s Canal — was idyllic.
And now, some conclusion-free observations I had while hobnobbing around London:
Packing is eminently difficult when you don’t whether you might be playing pickup with the lads in Hyde Park or invited to tea with the King.
Once you’ve seen a pub, you’ve seen them all BUT don’t be fooled into thinking they’re all the same. Some are trash. And others are true diamonds in the rough and discernment matters. At The Gunners, we saw dirty sports memorabilia and strangers assembling to watch the game. At The Woodbine, we saw neighbors and friends embracing each other, delighted to share a pint as they have so many times together, before scattering to their far-flung corners of the stadium.
When considering curry’s status as the national dish of Britain, I appreciated Salman Rushdie’s concept of literary “chutnification”: the idea that migrant cultures transform their host cultures through a kind of pickling process. From this view, curry becoming British could be read as revenge instead of theft: the colonized literally feeding the colonizer, reshaping British identity from the inside, making Britain dependent on something it once dismissed as foreign and inferior.
While walking I happened upon Friends House, the central offices of the Quakers in Britain which have been visited by spiritual and moral luminaries from Ghandi to MLK to Thuneberg. I was immediately smitten by this
religionway of life and its idea that God is a light inside of us, whether takes the form of a campfire, lightbulb, or candle. (Curiously, there are fewer than half a million Quakers worldwide, perhaps because they don’t proselytize.)Perhaps controversial: I’ve resolved to stop bringing books on trips. I never read the one I bring, and it takes up needed space. There are plenty to find at hotels (or buy if you’re really desperate). The pick this time was John le Carré’s final spy novel, Agent Running in the Field, which I snagged at a hostel in the old mansion of a biscuit magnate. (Highly recommend ed at £15 per night. We are all about the high/low, baybeee.)
As they chant in the North End (and in the Clock End, too): “It’s good to / good to be a / good to be a Goonah!”
Bye, ta-ta for now,
Seth
P.S. Here’s my Google Map of everything worth doing in North London. And while I’m at it, enjoy this playlist on English bangers. Let me know how you get on.
Harrison’s “Blow Away” is especially apt for a newsletter called Shelter, as he wrote it “from feelings of frustration and inadequacy resulting from the leaking roof at his Friar Park home.”
Gloriously, this was an unhinged version of the game where Q would brutally foul your opponent, and ALT+Q would result in a flagrant dive. You could also slide tackle the keeper while he held the ball.
A muted happiness, as it turned out. The 0-0 draw against Sporting Portugal was far from the scintillating “two convincing goals” that are in Nick Hornby’s recipe for a perfect day out, but…we are on to the semi-finals for the second year in a row, and that’s something to enjoy.
🔗 links 🔗
The English Way
By Kate Fox for VICE
My take: I was surprised to find a dearth of bar seating at pubs. For a world capital, London is an extremely polite and calm city, but with a noticeable no-new-friends vibe that means you have to work extra hard to strike up conversation. Kate Fox calls this the “English Social Dis-ease.”
Best line: “[It’s] my shorthand for all our chronic social inhibitions, our insularity, our emotional constipation, our inability to engage with other human beings in a normal and straightforward fashion. Both the famous “English reserve” and the infamous “English hooliganism” are symptoms of the Dis-ease: when we feel uncomfortable in social situations (i.e., most of the time) we either become overpolite, buttoned-up, and awkwardly restrained, or loud, loutish, crude, violent, and generally obnoxious.”
A Guide to British Pubs: The Good, The Bad and The Overpriced by Katie Randall for Paste
Best line: “A pub can be a sanctuary: a place to while away your Sunday afternoons with friends with a glass of wine (or three) and a Sunday roast. It can be a filler spot, purely chosen out of convenience, a place to grab a quick drink before going onto your final destination. From live music, comedy shows, sports games to drag shows, DJs and boozy brunches (or even just somewhere to sit and read a book), a pub is the watering hole equivalent of a jack of all trades.”
King Charles Coastal Path, the World’s Longest, Is Now Open by Lucy Kehoe for AFAR
Best line: Beginning at the Scottish border, the North East and East Coast sections allow hikers to pass the impressive balustrades of Bamburgh Castle, a 1,400-year-old fortress that towers above one of England’s most beautiful beaches; small fishing towns, such as Whitby in North Yorkshire; and vast seabird colonies in Bempton, which are home to gannets, puffins, and kittiwakes.
A Phone-Free Childhood? One Irish Village Is Making It Happen by Sally McGrane for The New York Times (🎁)
Best line: The kids are a little different here in Greystones. In 2023, the Irish seaside town just south of Dublin launched a grass-roots initiative led by local parents, school principals and community members to loosen the grip of technology on their younger kids by adopting a voluntary “no smart devices” code and supporting it with workshops and social events.
Three years later, no one in Greystones claims to have cured the ills of modern technology. But they’ve learned that they can’t do anything about it one child at a time. Only a townwide effort could defang the kids’ “everyone else has one” argument.”
home tour
The art of repair: a creative retreat hidden deep in Devon’s Exe Valley
By Lily le Brun & Paul Whitbread (photos) for The Modern House
Best line: “It was definitely a labour of love,” they say – involving three years of staying with friends and family, and even in a Norwegian-inspired teepee made from Devonshire pine. But the result fulfilled their vision of a place that works as well for entertaining as it does for retreating and working – both artists are clear that living here has inspired and developed their creative practices. Designing the living spaces to retain a tangible connection with the outdoors, they have managed to preserve the sense of ferality that so enchanted them when they first discovered the place – so much so that when talking about their home, Leila and Sophie refer to it not as “the house”, but as “the garden.”
Seth Putnam is an editor and writer in Chicago. He lives with his wife, son, and daughter in a 1920s home that is the epitome of a work in progress.
“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” — Mary Oliver